Lighttpd
Lighttpd is "a secure, fast, compliant, and very flexible web-server that has been optimized for high-performance environments. It has a very low memory footprint compared to other webservers and takes care of cpu-load. Its advanced feature-set (FastCGI, CGI, Auth, Output-Compression, URL-Rewriting and many more) make lighttpd the perfect webserver-software for every server that suffers load problems."
Contents
Installation
Configuration
Basic Setup
The lighttpd configuration file is: /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
. By default it should produce a working test page.
To check your lighttpd.conf
for bugs you can use this command - helps finding misconfigurations very fast:
$ lighttpd -t -f /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
The default configuration file specifies /srv/http/
as the document directory served. To test the installation, create a dummy file:
/srv/http/index.html
Hello world!
Then start/enable the lighttpd.service
and point your browser to localhost
, where you should see the test page.
Example configuration files are available in /usr/share/doc/lighttpd/
.
CGI
Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts work with Lighttpd out of box, you just need to enable the CGI module, include the configuration file and make sure your chosen programming language interpreter is installed. (i.e. for python you would install python)
Create the file /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/cgi.conf
Add the following to it:
server.modules += ( "mod_cgi" ) cgi.assign = ( ".pl" => "/usr/bin/perl", ".cgi" => "/usr/bin/perl", ".rb" => "/usr/bin/ruby", ".erb" => "/usr/bin/eruby", ".py" => "/usr/bin/python", ".php" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi" ) index-file.names += ( "index.pl", "default.pl", "index.rb", "default.rb", "index.erb", "default.erb", "index.py", "default.py", "index.php", "default.php" )
For PHP scripts you will need to make sure the following is set in /etc/php/php.ini
cgi.fix_pathinfo = 1
In your Lighttpd configuration file, /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
add:
include "conf.d/cgi.conf"
FastCGI
Install fcgi. Now you have lighttpd with fcgi support. If it was that what you wanted you are all set. People that want Ruby on Rails, PHP or Python should continue.
First copy the example config file form /usr/share/doc/lighttpd/config/conf.d/fastcgi.conf
to /etc/lighttpd/conf.d
The following needs adding to the config file, /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/fastcgi.conf
server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" ) #server.indexfiles += ( "dispatch.fcgi" ) #this is deprecated index-file.names += ( "dispatch.fcgi" ) #dispatch.fcgi if rails specified server.error-handler-404 = "/dispatch.fcgi" #too fastcgi.server = ( ".fcgi" => ( "localhost" => ( "socket" => "/run/lighttpd/rails-fastcgi.sock", "bin-path" => "/path/to/rails/application/public/dispatch.fcgi" ) ) )
Then in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
:
include "conf.d/fastcgi.conf"
For PHP or Ruby on Rails see the next sections.
PHP
Install php and php-cgi (see also PHP and LAMP).
Check that php-cgi is working php-cgi --version
PHP 5.4.3 (cgi-fcgi) (built: May 8 2012 17:10:17) Copyright (c) 1997-2012 The PHP Group Zend Engine v2.4.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2012 Zend Technologies
If you get a similar output then php is installed correctly.
Create a new configuration file:
/etc/lighttpd/conf.d/fastcgi.conf
# Make sure to install php and php-cgi. See: # https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Fastcgi_and_lighttpd#PHP server.modules += ("mod_fastcgi") # FCGI server # =========== # # Configure a FastCGI server which handles PHP requests. # index-file.names += ("index.php") fastcgi.server = ( # Load-balance requests for this path... ".php" => ( # ... among the following FastCGI servers. The string naming each # server is just a label used in the logs to identify the server. "localhost" => ( "bin-path" => "/usr/bin/php-cgi", "socket" => "/tmp/php-fastcgi.sock", # breaks SCRIPT_FILENAME in a way that PHP can extract PATH_INFO # from it "broken-scriptfilename" => "enable", # Launch (max-procs + (max-procs * PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN)) procs, where # max-procs are "watchers" and the rest are "workers". See: # https://redmine.lighttpd.net/projects/1/wiki/frequentlyaskedquestions#How-many-php-CGI-processes-will-lighttpd-spawn "max-procs" => 4, # default value "bin-environment" => ( "PHP_FCGI_CHILDREN" => "1" # default value ) ) ) )
Make lighttpd use the new configuration file:
/etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
include "conf.d/fastcgi.conf"
Reload lighttpd.
Using php-fpm
There is no adaptive spawning anymore in recent lighttpd releases. For dynamic management of PHP processes, you can install php-fpm and then start and enable php-fpm.service
.
In /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/fastcgi.conf
add:
server.modules += ( "mod_fastcgi" ) index-file.names += ( "index.php" ) fastcgi.server = ( ".php" => ( "localhost" => ( "socket" => "/run/php-fpm/php-fpm.sock", "broken-scriptfilename" => "enable" )) )
eAccelerator
Install eacceleratorAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror].
Add own config file for eaccelerator:
/etc/php/conf.d/eaccelerator-own.ini
zlib.output_compression = On cgi.fix_pathinfo=1 eaccelerator.cache_dir="/home/phpuser/eaccelerator/cache"
Try a php page
Create the following php page, name it index.php
, and place a copy in both /srv/http/
and /srv/http-ssl/html/
<?php phpinfo(); ?>
Try navigating with a web browser to both the http and https address of your server. You should see the phpinfo page.
Check eaccelerator caching:
# ls -l /home/phpuser/eaccelerator/cache
If the above command outputs the following:
-rw------- 1 phpuser phpuser 456 2005-05-05 14:53 eaccelerator-277.58081 -rw------- 1 phpuser phpuser 452 2005-05-05 14:53 eaccelerator-277.88081
Then eaccelerator is happily caching your php scripts to help speed things up.
Ruby on Rails
Install and configure FastCGI (see #FastCGI above).
Install ruby from official repositories and ruby-fcgiAUR[broken link: archived in aur-mirror] from AUR.
Follow instructions on RubyOnRails.
Python FastCGI
Install and configure FastCGI (see #FastCGI above).
Install python2-flup.
Configure:
fastcgi.server = ( ".py" => ( "python-fcgi" => ( "socket" => "/run/lighttpd/fastcgi.python.socket", "bin-path" => "test.py", "check-local" => "disable", "max-procs" => 1, ) ) )
Put the test.py in the root of your server (do not forget to chmod +x it)
#!/usr/bin/env python2 def myapp(environ, start_response): print 'got request: %s' % environ start_response('200 OK', [('Content-Type', 'text/plain')]) return ['Hello World!'] if __name__ == '__main__': from flup.server.fcgi import WSGIServer WSGIServer(myapp).run()
Thanks to firecat53 for his explanation
SSL
Generate an SSL Cert, e.g. like that:
# mkdir /etc/lighttpd/certs # openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 7300 -newkey rsa:2048 -sha256 -keyout /etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem -out /etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem # chmod 600 /etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem
Edit /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
.
To make lighttpd SSL-only (you probably need to set the server port to 443 as well)
ssl.engine = "enable" ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem"
To enable SSL in addition to normal HTTP
$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" { ssl.engine = "enable" ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem" }
If you want to serve different sites, you can change the document root inside the socket conditional:
$SERVER["socket"] == ":443" { server.document-root = "/srv/ssl" # use your ssl directory here ssl.engine = "enable" ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem" # use the path where you created your pem file }
or as alternative you can use the scheme conditional to distinguish between secure and normal requests.
$HTTP["scheme"] == "https" { server.document-root = "/srv/ssl" # use your ssl directory here ssl.engine = "enable" ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.com.pem" # use the path where you created your pem file }
Note that you cannot use the scheme conditional around ssl.engine above, since lighttpd needs to know on what port to enable SSL.
Server Name Indication
To use SNI with lighttpd, simply put additional ssl.pemfile configuration directives inside host conditionals. A default ssl.pemfile is still required.
$HTTP["host"] == "www.example.org" { ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/www.example.org.pem" } $HTTP["host"] == "mail.example.org" { ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/certs/mail.example.org.pem" }
Redirect HTTP requests to HTTPS
You should add "mod_redirect"
in server.modules array in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
:
server.modules += ( "mod_redirect" ) $SERVER["socket"] == ":80" { $HTTP["host"] =~ "example.org" { url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://example.org/$1" ) server.name = "example.org" } } $SERVER["socket"] == ":443" { ssl.engine = "enable" ssl.pemfile = "/etc/lighttpd/ssl/server.pem" server.document-root = "..." }
To redirect all hosts to their secure equivalents use the following in place of the socket 80 configuration above:
$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" { $HTTP["host"] =~ ".*" { url.redirect = (".*" => "https://%0$0") } }
To redirect all hosts for part of the site (e.g. secure or phpmyadmin):
$SERVER["socket"] == ":80" { $HTTP["url"] =~ "^/secure" { url.redirect = ( "^/(.*)" => "https://example.com/$1" ) } }
Output Compression
In /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
add
var.cache_dir = "/var/cache/lighttpd"
Then create directory for a compressed files:
# mkdir /var/cache/lighttpd/compress # chown http:http /var/cache/lighttpd/compress
Copy example configuration file:
# mkdir /etc/lighttpd/conf.d # cp /usr/share/doc/lighttpd/config/conf.d/compress.conf /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/
Add following in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
:
include "conf.d/compress.conf"